Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence - A Complete Guide to the Groundbreaking Wheel of Awareness Meditation Practice

4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars | 732 ratings

Price: 19.69

Last update: 07-27-2024


Top reviews from the United States

Larry Drell,MD
5.0 out of 5 stars AN INCREDIBLE GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING YOUR MIND AND WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH IT
Reviewed in the United States on August 22, 2018
I am a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. Over the years I have emphasized to my patients that awareness of self and awareness of others are vital skills. So many problems and limitations are related to not being aware and simply living on automatic pilot.

And now there is an incredibly well written book devoted to this topic and explaining how to harness the power of awareness. It is actually for anyone who is curious about how to live a better life, curious about what their mind is, what consciousness is and how to use all this information to expand what it means to be human and how we can be better at it.

Dan Siegel is an incredible teacher and takes you through what awareness is and the steps to develop the skills to enhance your awareness and increase your ability to focus attention. He explores the science of attention, focus and intention and explains how developing these skills can actually change the structure of your brain and the overall functioning of your body and slow aging.

This is both a useful and practical guidebook for anyone who wants to learn skills to increase their awareness and it is an exciting exploration into an understanding of consciousness itself. He explains how our mind/body/brain work together creating who we are and how we can use the power of awareness to live with greater intention and attention to create greater resilience and wellbeing.

He explores mindfulness meditation making it even more accessible to beginners and deepening it for seasoned meditators and he presents a practical tool (the Wheel of Awareness) that is both an incredibly useful tool and a model of the mind to help you understand and begin to master the mysteries of consciousness.

Dan Siegel writes as if he is having a conversation with the reader as he tells the story of what it means to be aware and how to deepen this capacity. He skillfully integrates his vast knowledge of the latest neuroscience, cognitive psychology, neurobiology of interpersonal relationship discoveries into clear concepts that are at the heart of how our minds work and what we can do with this to enhance our lives and the lives of all who we connect with.

This book is for a wide audience. On one level it is for beginners who are curious about what it means to be aware and want tools to expand their minds such as meditation and the Wheel of Awareness. And this book is also an incredible rich resource for seasoned students of the mind who want to deepen their understanding and explore our potential as more fully conscious and aware human beings.

This book belongs on the shelf of anyone who wants to be more aware and to enrich their life and the lives of all they encounter

Larry Drell, M.D.
Anxiety and Depression Therapy Services
Washington DC
Eran Katz
5.0 out of 5 stars Best book about meditation
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2024
This is, perhaps, one of the best books I have read about the use and benefits of reflective practices, aka meditation. Siegel describes a practice that he has developed, called The Wheel of Awareness. He teaches the reader on how to do this practice and then most of the books talks about the benefits of such a practice. He proposed a very interesting theory of how our minds work, (the 3P model) which I find very useful and interesting as a mental health practitioner and just as a person. Also, while Siegel isn't afraid of talking about spirituality, this is a book about meditation that isn't about spirituality or religion, and that is nice in and of itself.
Ron Milestone
4.0 out of 5 stars A practical book of meditation
Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2022
Siegel, a Psychiatrist and advocate for new treatment methods, has written a book exploring the use of "attention"/meditation as a treatment modality. There are several other approaches that now emphasize this including DBH, Focusing, and others. Siegel's approach formalizes the multiple focuses of attention as described in Buddhist literature, the dharmas, into an exercise that guides the student in practicing focused attention. The skill, once learned, is broadened to attend to emotions, and other subjective experiences. Examples are given of its effectiveness, with limited reference to research studies. The method joins several emerging techniques which aim to enhance attention and use it for purposes of treatment. It is well presented, organized, and offers another method for psychological intervention.
The deeper relationship between attention, meditation, and breath control is not explored.
Abhishek
5.0 out of 5 stars A treatise on all aspects of human nature...Verbose yes but brilliant
Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2019
I found Dan Siegal's book Aware through a podcast. What a lucky day that was!! I don't say that lightly as it has literally given me a new perspective on how to go about living your life and forced me to write me first book review. As a voracious reader of non-fiction books, avid meditator and an overall joyous person this book is that wrapper which ties everything together.

What's surprising is that I was mostly aware of the things discussed in the book, but the way Mr. Dan Siegal brings it all together is phenomenal (with a caveat that he goes off on tangents, sometimes writes in a circular way and demands multiple readings). This book can change lives if truly absorbed.

This book has grabbed/consumed me solid for the past 2 months – as I had to watch a lot of Dan’s videos to literally absorb his takeaways. The book is a paradox in the sense is that it gives you the ammunition to solve all your deepest human problems but the ways to go about is simple and mostly experiential.

The visuals in the book – 3P framework, wheel of awareness, pillars of mind training, hand model of brain, diagram which brings it all together from neural, wheel, 3P, common vernacular are simple, elegant and makes the learning go deeper.

Even though I rate the book very highly it’s only because I invested a lot of time in it to truly experience it. I will be hesitant to recommend it to a casual reader. This book can be a big bore of tedium or its weight in gold – depending on the audience consuming it.

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